ADDED 08/07/2018
FROM 08/07/2018 | Real Clear Politics
BY Daniel J. Mahoney
The time has arrived for some moderation and clarity in thinking about contemporary Russia and its relationship to the Western world. Ronald Reagan was not wrong in the 1980s to call the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Its death in 1991 was a welcome victory for liberty, peace, and political civilization. But post-communist Russia is […]
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ADDED 08/04/2018
FROM 08/03/2018 | The New Republic
BY PATRICK STRICKLAND
In Greece, a mob assault on a liberal mayor offers a disturbing view of where the current uptick in right-wing extremism can lead. Yiannis Boutaris stared back at a sea of angry faces on May 20—a few muttered insults. Boos erupted from pockets of the crowd. “Leave,” they demanded. The 76-year-old winemaker-turned-mayor’s body tensed: “I […]
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ADDED 07/31/2018
FROM 07/30/2018 | Mondoweiss
BY Jamil Khader
Two important events happened towards the end of the third week of July in Israel: The ethnocratic settler-colonial state of Israel passed its new Jewish nation state law, which has been in the making for over two years now, and Hungary’s anti-Semitic Prime Minister Viktor Orban made a two-day visit to Israel. Despite the international uproar over the […]
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ADDED 07/29/2018
FROM 07/28/2018 | Winnipeg Free Press
BY Matt Henderson
The horrific authoritarian and fascist regimes of the 20th century might seem like a distant memory to some, as are the prophetic works by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. But, according to famed educational philosopher and pedagogue Henry Giroux, neo-fascism in the form of Trumpism has reared its ugly head in 2018. In American Nightmare: Facing […]
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ADDED 07/21/2018
FROM 07/21/2018 | The Guardian
BY Jamie Doward
Former White House chief adviser says he wants to rival to George Soros’s influence. Steve Bannon has announced plans to establish a foundation in Europe that he hopes will fuel the spread of rightwing populism across the continent. Donald Trump’s former chief advisor in the White House told the Daily Beast that he wanted to offer […]
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ADDED 07/18/2018
FROM 07/18/2018 | Open Democracy
BY ALICE BEBAN and LAURA SCHOENBERGER
We won’t know until the July 2018 elections whether this radical redrawing of the Cambodian political landscape is a ‘new normal’ of naked authoritarianism. What is happening is truly bad. In Cambodia, political violence in the run-up to the 2018 general election signals a move away from an explicitly populist authoritarianism towards a deeper authoritarianism. […]
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ADDED 07/14/2018
FROM 07/14/2018 | The Intercept
BY Glenn Greenwald
THE SON OF Jair Bolsonaro – the proto-fascist Congressman leading Brazil’s 2018 presidential polls if Lula (as expected) is barred from running – used Twitter on Friday night to post a fabricated poster in order to claim that LGBT groups are now explicitly advocating pedophilia. Carlos Bolsonaro (pictured, above), a Rio de Janeiro City Councilman with the Social Christian Party (PSC), is one of […]
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ADDED 07/13/2018
FROM | The News Minute
BY Hamid Ansari
Former Vice President M. Hamid Ansari has said that India is feared to be turned into an illiberal, majoritarian democracy where religious minorities would not be equal citizens but “on sufferance” and underlined that democratic institutions have been “eroded very seriously” in the country. “The basic concept that I have used is what is a […]
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ADDED 07/11/2018
FROM 07/11/2018 | Letters and Politics - KPFA
BY Mitch Jeserich
Today, Mitch Jeserich is in conversation with Thomas Frank on US History and Politics. Guest: Thomas Frank is a historian and columnist and the author of such books as What’s the Matter with Kansas and Listen Liberal. His latest book is a collection of essays called Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society.
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ADDED 07/10/2018
FROM | TruthDig
BY Chris Hedges
Our “corporate coup d’état in slow motion,” as the writer John Ralston Saul calls it, has opened a Pandora’s box of evils that is transforming America into a failed state. The “unholy trinity of corruption, impunity and violence,” he said, can no longer be checked. The ruling elites abjectly serve corporate power to exploit and impoverish the […]
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ADDED 07/09/2018
FROM 07/08/2018 | Brasil Wire
BY Brian Mier
Today, on July 8th, 2018, Brazil’s 4th Regional Federal Court Chief Judge Rogerio Favreto ordered ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s immediate release from prison, ruling on a motion filed by Workers’ Party Congressmen Paulo Pimenta and Wadir Damous Filho. Judge Sergio Moro, a lower court judge and hero to the Brazilian far right who has been working […]
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ADDED 07/07/2018
FROM 07/06/2018 | The Conversation
BY Brian Porter-Szücs
Since the elections of 2015, Poland has been ruled by the Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, or PiS), a far-right nationalist group that has transformed the country beyond recognition. Poland had once been lauded as the great post-communist success story, with solid democratic institutions and a booming economy. Now, under PiS rule, Poland is steadily […]
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